


Expatriate

by LtLJ



Series: Retrograde Extras [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Friendship, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-06
Updated: 2006-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:30:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLJ/pseuds/LtLJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mitchell tastes like Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Expatriate

**Author's Note:**

> Set between "Least Resistance" and "Tropic of Cancer"
> 
> Cover by Tripoli

John and Mitchell were three streets from Telar's trading compound, trying to get back across the city, when John saw the Genii.

Luckily, he was pretty sure the Genii hadn't seen them. It was twilight and the sky was overcast, and they were both dressed in dull brown and gray hand-me-down Athosian clothes: pants patched with leather, sweaters that were starting to ravel. John's shirt had a hole that was funneling the cold damp air all over his body, and the leather wraps standing in for boots let him feel every pebble in the streets.

The Genii were at the next cross street, six men dressed in rustic farmer outfits that didn't quite look right in an eclectic trading city like Renat. And they were armed, pistols and at least two shotguns, when most of the people here didn't carry weapons. One was a short, heavy-set guy, dark-haired, and John thought he looked familiar. Then he turned, looking back this way, and John recognized Bethen, a Genii subcommander. John was already turning, putting his back to them to shield his face, trying to make it look casual. "Genii," he told Mitchell.

"Evil Amish Space Nazis," Mitchell said, confirming that he had paid attention at the briefing. He scratched his head, looking around, and John started back the way they had come, moving unhurriedly. Just two guys who had suddenly realized they had taken a turn down the wrong street. There were a few other people out, but everybody else seemed to be briskly heading somewhere else. This wasn't a good area of town; it was all warehouses, abandoned buildings, living space that wasn't necessary anymore after the last culling. Mitchell asked, "Would they recognize you?"

"Oh yeah. This isn't a coincidence. They must know we're here." _That stupid bastard Telar_. Renat was a city made up of trading compounds, no real government, and Telar wanted to keep the fact that he had a deal with Atlantis secret. John had had to do the negotiation, because Telar would only deal with him or Elizabeth, and John sure as hell wasn't letting Elizabeth go. Bringing Mitchell had been a compromise; he had originally intended to go alone, since taking in a full team would just draw unwanted attention, but everybody had thrown a fit.

Sticking to the shadows under the overhanging buildings, they made it about a hundred yards back up the street. Then John saw three more Genii under another gaslight, coming toward them from the other cross-street.

"Oh, hell," Mitchell said under his breath. "Where's a dark alley when you need one."

John had been keeping an eye out for alleys, empty buildings, any place they could get into. But the stone walls were high and windowless along this stretch of street. This was why he hated going undercover in goddamn cities, especially ones that were frequented by the Genii and half a dozen other of their worst enemies. And if there was a culling, it was too easy to get trapped.

Then John spotted a familiar symbol carved on a doorway, and nudged Mitchell's arm. "In here."

A lot of refugees came through Renat from culled worlds, and there were places like this all over the poor side of the town. They were more like flophouses than motels or hostels; just big open rooms, warehouse-like, with pallets on the dirt or stone floors.

The foyer was dark, no one there but an old guy with a bowl. John dropped in one of the square coppery tokens the Renli used for money. Instead of precious metals, each token represented a measure of grain. The old man waved them in, not even bothering to look up.

But as soon as they stepped through the heavy curtains into the main area, John knew they were in trouble. He muttered, "Son of a bitch. I thought it would be bigger." There was only one long room, dimly lit by hanging oil lamps, with only thirty or forty people in it; the other refugee houses he had seen were huge, with multiple halls and a couple hundred noisy people, perfect places to get lost in. Here everybody was mostly asleep, huddled on the pallets in the shadows. There was a baby crying, and some soft voices and snoring.

Mitchell had edged the curtain open just enough to peer back through the foyer. "The old guy's arguing with somebody at the door." He pulled back, throwing John a grim look. "Yeah, they're coming in."

They would just have to chance it. "Come on."

Moving fast, John made his way through to the back, where the shadows were thickest, and found an unoccupied pallet. The blankets were musty and smelled of other people and John thought, _Yeah, space fleas again_ even while they were scrambling to lie down and look relaxed. He tucked his 9mm under his pack where he could get to it, and flopped down just as the door curtains were shoved aside. It was the first group, five men and Bethen, who knew John by sight, all armed. John rolled his eyes. Yeah, his luck sucked today.

He shifted around, facing Mitchell, hoping the Genii would just give the place a cursory look and then leave. Mitchell had his head pillowed on one arm, watching the door with a narrow worried squint. He was close enough for John to feel body heat. John had a sudden vivid flash of memory, of when Mitchell had pulled him out of the infirmary on the _Daedalus_, with John half out of his head on painkillers and thinking he was a suddenly inconvenient hostage who was about to be breathing vacuum. That was a month ago now and John's surgery scar was fading.

John could hear the Genii moving around, talking, and the back of his neck itched with the need to look. Then Mitchell grimaced. "They've got a lamp and they're looking at everybody, waking 'em up," he muttered. "That's not good."

John thought, _fuck, that's it._ They could try to shoot their way out, risk killing half the refugees in the room, and probably die with them. If they had to surrender.... He mentally wrote himself off; he didn't have any doubt what the Genii would do to him. But if they thought Mitchell was just an Atlantean Marine they hadn't seen before, they would kill him too. _Jesus, they'll have a member of SG-1 and not have a clue._ Not until the _Daedalus_ returned. Then the Genii might discover that they didn't want a piece of that action after all, but it would be way too late by then. He whispered, "If they get us, I'll tell them you're a scientist; just play along. They've got 1920s-era tech, if that, so you know enough to fake it. If they try to sell you back to Atlantis that'll give Bates the--"

His eyes still on the approaching Genii, Mitchell said, "Wait, I got--" Then he grabbed John by the back of the head and kissed him. John froze, tensing against him, his brain realizing _oh right, this might work_ while the rest of him, still keyed up for a fight, tried to shift into panic mode. The lamplight flashed over this part of the room and John made himself relax, made the rigid line of his body soften for the benefit of anybody watching them, made his jaw unlock and his lips part.

Mitchell tasted like Earth, which was just freaking weird. Part of it was the ghost of real mint toothpaste and good aftershave leftover from this morning, but there was something else, something that was just different. Everybody John had kissed in the past three years had tasted like Atlantis, or Athos, or some other world.

The lamplight shifted and Mitchell's arm went around John's waist and tugged him closer. He broke the kiss to nuzzle John's ear and whisper, "They're heading toward the other side of the room, maybe-- Oh, hell."

John heard voices behind him, not far away, and one of them was Bethen. He turned his head enough to catch Mitchell's mouth again and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling Mitchell down on top of him.

Mitchell went with it immediately, bracing himself on one elbow, settling his weight more firmly atop John, hunching over him to better hide him. John felt sweat break out all over his body, and it wasn't because of the Genii. He buried his face in Mitchell's shoulder.

Mitchell shifted, moving something from under the blanket and tucking it in against John's side. John closed his hand around the cool metal of their other 9mm.

John heard boots on the wood floor, sleepy mutters from disturbed occupants of the other pallets, Bethen's voice saying, "...look everywhere..." _This is going to be close._ He felt like they needed a little more verisimilitude here and worked a leg free, hooking his knee over Mitchell's hip. Only then John's legs were spread, Mitchell's thigh firmly against his groin, and suddenly he had more verisimilitude than he intended. _Oh, great move, John,_ he told himself sourly. It would have been way more humiliating if an instant later Mitchell hadn't whispered, sounding embarrassed, "Oh, boy."

John registered the hardness against his hip and his throat went dry. He managed to mutter, "It's okay." He tried to focus on something else, like the very good chance they were about to be hauled off to lingering deaths in an underground Genii bunker. He tried to calculate something in his head, or recite the translation into Ancient of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" that Linguistics had done last Christmas. But the weight and solid warmth pinning him to the pallet, Mitchell's hand in his hair, the pressure on the inside of his thighs, kept him firmly in the moment. _Don't move, don't moan,_ he told himself. _Just...don't._

John heard bootsteps approach, caught a flash of the light from the lantern. Mitchell hissed, "Sorry," and started to rock.

John gritted his teeth. Mitchell was keeping his weight as much off John as he could and still make it look convincing, and that just made it worse. John knew he should probably moan or do something else to help but he was afraid of what would happen if he did.

The lamplight flashed over them, and Mitchell growled something incoherent. One of the Genii made a startled comment, the others laughed. John had a nightmarish moment where he thought the Genii would stand there long enough that he and Mitchell would have to fake orgasms, and he thought he was just going to have to start shooting people. Then the bootsteps moved away.

An eternity later, Mitchell lifted his head. "They're gone." He added fervently, "Thank God."

John swore in relief. Mitchell rolled off him and they lay there a long moment in silence. They had to give the Genii time to move out of the area, much as John just wanted to jump up and run out. He could hear a steady mutter of complaints from the other pallets, and not all of it was about the Genii. The other shelters he had seen had been pretty free and easy, but John was beginning to suspect this wasn't the kind of place where you did this kind of thing.

Mitchell said quietly, "I really hope this isn't, you know, the local equivalent of the Methodist Church soup kitchen."

"Don't." John flung an arm over his eyes.

Just as they were leaving, the old guy from the front door came in to throw them out, because some of the refugees had complained about their behavior.

  
***

  
They got the hell out of the area. Once they had some breathing room and found a dark alley, Mitchell kept watch while John dug the radio out of his pack. He called Markham, who was waiting outside the city near the stargate, and arranged a pickup time for later that night. No way was John going to try to stroll out of the city gates in the morning; if the Genii were checking the refugee houses near Telar's compound, they would have a group at the gates. But it was still early evening, and it would be a few more hours before the city got quiet enough to bring in and land even a cloaked jumper unnoticed.

They made it safely back to the good side of town where the streets were crowded with people visiting the outdoor taverns in the little plazas, everything lit by the gas streetlamps. They found a real hostel and John stayed outside while Mitchell went in to pay for a private room with two of the Renli grain tokens.

They managed to do all this without making eye contact once.

It wasn't a bad room: stone walls and a plank floor, and a low wooden bed with a straw-stuffed mattress and some wool blankets. There were a few hanging lamps of the same coppery metal as the coins, and a little round stone hearth in one corner. There was no fuel for a fire, since the Renli thought it was still summer. And there was a window with strong wooden shutters that gave onto the back courtyard, in case they needed a second exit.

Once the door was shut and barred, Mitchell shifted uncertainly and said, "Uh, okay. So about what happened...."

"Do you want to have sex?" John asked. He had a vague memory that there were ways you eased up on this kind of thing on Earth, especially with a Lieutenant Colonel, but he couldn't remember what they were right now.

"Oh yeah." Mitchell nodded in relief. Then they finally made eye contact.

John grabbed double handfuls of Mitchell's sweater and pulled him into a kiss, making it deep and demanding, not trying to hide the need. John felt Mitchell's hands on his waist, his hips, his ass. Then they were falling onto the bed, and trying to get their pants open. Athosian clothing had a lot of lacings. Mitchell swore, "Jesus _God_, does everything have to be so frigging difficult?" and John, who had been saying that for three years, told him, "Welcome to my world."

John finally got his pants open enough to matter, and climbed on top of Mitchell, pushing their cocks together. Mitchell pulled him down into a hard kiss, then turned his head, using his tongue and teeth on John's ear. Strong hands moved down John's back, pulling his ragged shirt up, reaching down to grip his hips, keeping their bodies firmly in contact. Breathless and rough, Mitchell asked, "What do you want?"

John bit his shoulder and rasped out, "I want you to f-- Oh, shit." Here John was desperate to give it all up, and there was a little problem with that. "Hold it, I can't--"

"That's okay," Mitchell said automatically, easing back. He looked up at him, worried. "What?"

"We ran out of condoms two years ago," John said, looking at the wall instead of Mitchell. He felt weirdly vulnerable admitting it. The Athosians had a plant extract that made a good birth control drug, but it didn't do anything to prevent the spread of disease. They had all been careful and John didn't think he had anything, but he didn't want to be the guy responsible for spreading a new STD to the Milky Way. "We've been careful, but-- You don't have one?"

"Not with me. Damn, you guys should have said something before the _Daedalus_ left, O'Neill would've understood." While John was trying to get his brain around that idea, Mitchell said, "Let's try this."

Mitchell rolled John on his back and took him in his hand, firm and warm and just right, and John said, "Oh yeah, that's good too."

It got slow and intense and creative, working toward a slow build of heat that made John breathless and a little light-headed. Mitchell still felt like Earth, but not the Earth that John remembered. That Earth was the place John had written off, the home that wasn't home anymore, the place where no one wanted him, where his best friends were dead, where he didn't have anywhere to go except a cold bunk at McMurdo. This was like Earth before the Trust, the Earth that everybody else in Atlantis had remembered: green hills and safety and limitless possibilities. It was freaking him out a little.

John was still highly conflicted about Atlantis connecting with Earth again, putting itself under that outside authority. It had to happen if they were going to survive; they needed the supplies, the personnel, and God, the ships. But he knew the Pentagon would want to assign a new CO, no matter what the others said. That there was a good chance that the top brass wouldn't be persuaded by Elizabeth's arguments against it, even if O'Neill and the international committee supported her like she thought they would. That John's rank in Atlantis' military chain of command might be a deal-breaker.

If John had any sense at all he probably wouldn't be in bed with the guy who might be required to report on John's competence to the Pentagon.

Except this was also the guy that a little part of John had always sort of trusted, had liked from the beginning, even when common sense said to be suspicious. Maybe because their first meeting had been Mitchell taking John off the _Daedalus_ and back to his people, handing himself over to be a hostage because he hadn't been able to stand the idea that John might think he was being executed, even just for the few minutes it would have taken to beam down to the Mainland. That was the moment when John had known in his bones that O'Neill and Hammond and the others weren't lying, that the SGC really was here to help them. And John had always been a sucker for people who were nice to him.

But in a lot of ways, this was also like sex with another Atlantean, and not like the sex John had had on Earth.

Mitchell actually said, at one point, "Am I doing this right?"

Since John was panting and digging his fingers into the bed frame behind his head, all he could do was gasp, "Huh?"

"I don't usually do this with guys," Mitchell explained, apparently in complete earnest, and John cracked up.

But he was fricking serious, so John talked him through how to slip a finger inside him and find just the right spot, and Mitchell was such a quick study it made John swear and pound on the wall. When John came, it was so hard he sobbed. It would have been embarrassing again, but when John retaliated, Mitchell said, gasping in the aftershock, "Oh man, I think you broke me."

Mitchell didn't ask him about his scars, just assuming horrendous alien encounters, the way anybody on Atlantis would. He found the one on John's left thigh and measured it with two fingers, judging the size of the creature's mouth. "From an eel," John told him, "On M36-567. It tried to eat Rodney."

"Jeeze," Mitchell muttered sympathetically.

Mitchell didn't ask about his relationships, either. While they split a Snickers bar Mitchell had in his pack, he just said, "Okay, I never figured out the whole who's with who thing, and I'm not asking. I just want to know, if this should ever -- and God forbid -- get back to Atlantis, are there people who are going to try to kill me?"

Brow furrowed, trying to get the last of the chocolate out of the corners of the wrapper, John shrugged. "I wouldn't say 'kill.'"

Mitchell nodded. "Got it."

They cleaned up and got their clothes back on, and Mitchell claimed to be wide awake, so John let him take the watch while he took a nap. Even with straw working its way out of the mattress to poke him constantly, John fell asleep instantly, warm against Mitchell's side.

He woke when Mitchell squeezed his shoulder. "It's about that time."

"Right." John blinked at his watch, and sat up, stretching. He hadn't slept long, but he felt clear-headed and rested, ready to do the debriefing when they got back home. Maybe after a hot shower, though. He sniffed his shirt. Yeah, definitely after a hot shower.

Watching him, Mitchell asked, "You got a place to stay in Colorado?"

John lifted a brow at him. "I think they assigned me a locker at the SGC but I never saw it."

"You could stay at my place. When you visit Earth." He nudged John with a foot. "'Cause that's gonna happen."

The whole Earth thing was still problematic, but John knew a sincere offer when he heard it. And if he was lucky, he had at least another month before he had to think about it. He just said, "You got cable?"

Mitchell snorted derisively. "I got satellite. ESPN one, two, and classic."

John said, "It's a deal."

  
**end**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Expatriate [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/373580) by [Lunate8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunate8/pseuds/Lunate8)




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